Despite the crypto sector experiencing the hardest bearish push in its history, some projects are making up for the downfall. Solana managed to partly prove its nickname by surpassing Ethereum in NFT transaction volumes, as the Magic Eden NFT marketplace recorded a total of 360,734 transactions over the past seven days, while the total transaction volume on Magic Eden has surpassed $1.6 billion, according to DappRadar data.
Furthermore, DappRadar emphasized that over the past seven days, total transactions on Ethereum were a little under 500,000, while Solana recorded almost 630,000 transactions in the same time frame. However, Ethereum is still the altcoin leader when it comes to total value locked, while Solana remains far away from the second-largest crypto project to date.
Why did Solana trading volumes explode?
The primary reason for the massive surge in NFT transactions is the newly-launched Magic Eden NFT marketplace, which aimed to be a direct competitor to OpenSea. The hype around the marketplace, combined with the lower transaction costs on Solana played a vital role in the transaction spike, especially in a market where every transaction has to be as cost-efficient as possible.
Meanwhile, Magic Eden commented that they chose Solana for a blockchain, as transactions happen almost immediately and the current Ethereum landscape may turn some of the newly-minted or cheaper NFTs into non-viable options.
Solana price explodes
Shortly after the hype started, Solana’s price spiked 10% up to a high of $36.73. However, shortly after the pump, the overall crypto market stagnation yet again imposed a price correction, which ultimately erased most of Solana’s gains. However, trading volumes are still high, which could be a great foundation for another price rally. Currently, Solana sits inches away from the $34 mark.
The latest price fall pushed the crypto market back below $900 billion, currently sitting at $880.91 billion. Bitcoin is yet again below $20,000, as the industry leader still struggles to get a grip above $20,000. However, the price swings since the latest massive drop on June 12 are more or less indicating that Bitcoin is in a consolidation phase and may soon revisit $21,000 per BTC.
Ethereum is still holding strong around the $1,1000 support zone, as the second-largest crypto to date managed to withstand the pressure and stayed afloat at $1,000 per ETH, while trading volumes data suggests that Solana’s main competitor may see another bullish price swing.
The rest of the crypto sector remains tied to the price performance of the largest crypto projects, with only COSMOS (ATOM) recording positive price changes both daily and weekly, joined only by the Curve DAO token (CRV), and Convex Finance (CVX).
Looking at the monthly charts, the biggest loser in the crypto top-100 is the NEXO token (NEXO), which halved its price, followed by KuCoin token (KCS), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), inducing losses of 49.27% and 44.89%, respectively. Interestingly, Ethereum lost over a third of its price over the past thirty days, while the least affected projects seem to be those, tied to DeFi or NFTs like PancakeSwap and Axie Infinity, which recorded losses of around 30% each.